1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to cameras and camera control methods, and, in detail, relates to a camera having a function of moving image shooting together with still image shooting such as a digital camera, a video camera, a mobile phone with a camera, and relates to a camera control method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Still image shooting as cutting out a moment as in the conventional film photograph is comparatively simple for a user. On the other hand, in moving image shooting, it is difficult how to fix start timing and end timing and a movie camera has been used only in a formalized event such as an athletic festival and a wedding ceremony. Further, except when detailed rendering is preliminarily determined, a shot moving image has little variety and it is very difficult to make it an image worth viewing. This is because it is difficult to endure the monotonous image for a user accustomed to viewing a moving image in which composition changes frequently as in a TV program. Further, although a colorful expression can be obtained by the change of shooting parameters, it is difficult for an amateur user to do it.
Accordingly, there is an idea of combining the still image and the moving image to provide variety to the image. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. H4-331583 (Published on Nov. 19, 1992) or Japanese Patent Publication No. 3673528 (published on Mar. 10, 1995) discloses a camera capable of shooting a still image during shooting a moving image.
Further, there is proposed a camera which edits a moving image after shooting to prevent the image from becoming monotonous. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2003-110995 (published on Apr. 11, 2003) discloses a camera which provides a transition effect in the edition of a moving image when a connection rule (to end in a pan and to start in a pan) is not followed in the connection of a moving image, and allows even a user without technical knowledge for the moving image edition to perform the moving image edition easily.